Notice: Keep Out
by bobandbill
Summary: Readers, heed this message well – the house beyond this very notice is not the place to visit.  Why? Well, read on...


**KEEP OUT**

Readers, heed this message well – the house beyond this very notice is not the place to visit.

Now, we assure you this is no joke but it most certainly is, as you say, haunted. We fear even saying that will only strengthen the urge for you to go ahead and figuratively press that 'please kill me' button by visiting the place, but we just feel you'd want to know beforehand. Prior warning and all.

This is not your typical 'Old Chateau' either, where the scariest thing you'll find is a lonely Rotom with self-esteem problems and some ghosts more interested in floating through walls than anything else. Nor is it your Pokemon Tower - no properly haunted place lets itself get converted into a radio tower. No, this one comes with a death count.

No, it is not 'over nine thousand!1!1', as we're sure some of you are oddly tempted to stupidly ask. It's growing in number though – most that enter do not leave.

Well, maybe if you're a girl (and we assure you, by 'girl' we do not mean 'pansy' or 'sissy' or the like, but a female human being) then you may be safe (usually), although visiting still is not recommendable. The stench tends to put off most anyway. No – if you are a male, then this message goes out to you.

Trust us on this one, although you are free to try your luck. We're just tired of watching one after one walk through the doors time and time again never to leave, but we guess it says something about you males. Pah. But we're sure certain beings could argue that the world improves with each one of you removed – you'd be surprised.

Take... Jason, a fellow who tried his luck. We suppose it is the same for all of you trainers – you enter the nearby town, overhear a gossip or two, a tale here and there, and before you know it you're informed by the gym leader that 'that dusty old place is strictly off limits to all'. You may even have encountered the village crazy, who was said to have been the only one in living memory to make it out of the fittingly-named 'Home of Death' - alive. Not that he'd shed much light on the issue – according to dear Jason here who encountered him personally, the hobo had been reduced to ranting at any visitor to his humble garbage dumpster about visions and dead bodies. Oh, and Jason also seemed to have taken particular care in remembering that he smelt of cheese.

Believe us, Mr Crazy-Man got off _easy_.

However, such facts seem to have encouraged Jason and the others to come in droves rather than keep them out, one by one trying to sneak into the building late at night (something about daylight not making it 'scary' enough), attracted to the place like moths to a bright light.

Jason got past the first obstacle easily enough – a silent army of trees that stand around the house. He made his foolish Pokémon cut one down and easily stepped past, not thinking how anybody else could have gotten in without removing a tree before. He did however become a bit suspicious when he later looked out from a window within the large home, only to have seen the tree having regrown without a hint of so much as a missing branch or leaf. He thought Sudowoodo were very common creatures or something stupid like that, failing to realise it was _raining_ at the time.

No, instead Jason made the mistake of looking through things that weren't his. Reading through private entries in old diaries, rummaging through an old wardrobe of clothes (and daring to mess up the stack) and investigating himself in a dusty old mirror. Maybe he thought there was a chance he'd score or something in the nearby future to justify combing his hair right then and there.

Then again, he was not far off the mark. You see, those who anger the hosts by prying too much end up spotting another visitor. And so Jason observed a most shapely female, who giggled and moved out of sight into an adjacent room he hadn't noticed before. Of course, like so many before him, Jason followed – found himself unable _not_ to follow, in fact.

Clearly not thinking why she floated into the room rather than ran.

But we guess the less stupid, selfish people remaining, the better. Why, it's almost like a service being done to society. (No offence, Jason, but you did think with something else than your head when you saw her, and hence why you could not stop).

Of course, when that fact crossed his mind and he thought 'hang on maybe following what looked like a ghost to me might not be the brightest thing to do', it was too late. We'd spend more time to detail the sight that lies in that room he walked into, like the rotting corpses, and the overwhelming stench, and the buzz of flies resting on the meat – Jason particularly remembers the flies, it seems – but we suppose that would give you the basic gist of it. Not a pretty sight according to Jason.

Nor did the girl ghost appear beautiful to him when it turned around – there was something about the lack of face that had suddenly put him off what he had been originally thinking about. He'd have screamed right then and there, but for the most part he was frozen in place. Not just out of fear, but due to the ghost Pokémon that suddenly sprung him from behind, took control of his body and examined his memories.

Imagine an unknown presence suddenly slip into your conscious, seize control of your movements and shift through your entire life methodically.  
Jason didn't enjoy that.

Unfortunately for him, while he stood there helplessly, he was found to be...impure in thought, in memory, and in past deeds, and so he unceremoniously joined the bodies. After all, it's very easy to kill when you're a ghost.

In case you are currently wondering how Jason could possibly tell us all this after being, you know, dead, well we strongly advise you to ignore the above and come visit us – you're not bright enough to be likely a nice well-meaning person, fit to keep living. (Speaking from experience, of course, and there's always exceptions).

Yes, this warning comes from us, the hosts. 'Oh, how horrid', you may cry. We have our reasons – after all, we even make sure people like Jason know 'why' just before the fateful moment (hopefully no future ones would have read this message first). We used to be a merry bunch, living with our trainer. A sweet soul, she was, if a little dim-witted. She failed, after all, to see what a back-stabbing murderer _he_ was. Our first victim is probably the most deserving, after he left her lying in the mud with a knife in her back. We had seen through his false pretences of 'love' and 'romance' (very easy for ghost types to do, we suppose), but she fell for it, and our warnings had failed – she died, and shall remain so evermore.

We do not recommend trying to seek retribution against what we have done to these young men – believe us, we know them better than you do (and you won't fare much better anyways if you try to remove us). Each and every one we killed was a nasty piece of work who'd sooner take advantage of someone than give the time of day. You might not be able to guess which one of your friends would, say, _stab you in the back_, but we can. And there's a lot more of them than you may suspect.

Besides, the girl illusion is only set on those we believe to be impure (and only those with impure thoughts find themselves unable to resist following, as is the nature of our trick), and we make sure to examine each and every fibre of their thoughts and memories before dealing with them, just to make sure. Sure, we _were_ incorrect about Mr Crazy-Person (I believe his name was James) – he was a fine person after all, who didn't bear any resemblance to _him_ in character or personality, but we did let him back out with his limbs intact, after all. Not our fault he left his sanity behind. Consider him an example of what could happen, if he still is among the living when you read this.

But why do we do this, and why this notice we put here? Partly because we want peace. We don't mind having to kill – we're quite good at it, and when you're a ghost Pokémon, you don't really care much about delivering death to others anyway. Our anger knows no bounds if you intrude. But we much prefer nobody disturbing the old residence of our beloved trainer. She deserves just as much, and more, but you don't seem to understand - you keep coming, trying to poke and pry. And previous 'rumours' made about this place only made it worse, which involved hidden treasure and other such rubbish.

So we repeat – if you value your life, please don't enter our home, deep in the forest. Let us be. And if you don't believe us, just ask Jason here.

_[Hung next to the multiple papers making up the notice were the skeletal remains of a human.]_

* * *

An experimental one-shot, this - had an idea and ran with it. Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
